last coupla months.....

Well, um, I don't really know where to start. I got a few good stories to tell I reckon, so I'll just type as I think.... bear with me.

Well, probably the most consistently exhausting thing that has happened for the last two months is that I got some stuff stolen. As have many of us. But, my situation turned out really well. I got my ipod, a camera, and a blackberry stolen along with some money at my house. Immediately after this discovery, my community sprang into action and conducted an extensive investigation and arrested two suspects. All of my fellow teachers devoted their time and energy to getting to the bottom of it, so the end result was that I went to court about the whole ordeal. The judge was great and gave an astounding monologue to the entire courtroom about the peace corps and their mission in this country and how we should be encouraged to do the job that we came to do. So, the end result is that the suspects have to pay the monetary equivalent of the property and now everyone is watchin my house like hawks and I feel super safe. I was really impressed with how my community stepped up to set a precedence for this situation and how seriously everything was taken. I said it once and I'll say it again.... I got the best village here!

Next on the agenda is my brother's visit. So, Destin came with his friend Stevo (PCV in The Gambia). I picked them up when they got off of the ferry and we high tailed it back to the village because my AWESOME village had big plans for these guys. Even though they were running on small sleep, they were troopers and attended all the special events. It started with a football match that they set up, complete with a sound system to welcome the guys. Most of the village turned out for this. It also doubled as an advertisement for the village jam that was organized for their arrival. So, naturally, we had to make the rounds and introduce to lots of people and my fellow teachers came to the house and presented us with a goat that they all contributed to buy for our "big strangers". So, the first day of their arrival was pretty event filled and exhausting, but my village was super excited to receive them and I believe that they felt honored by the welcome they received. Other notable events during their visit are as follows:

-Destin mentioned his promise made to little Sadie that he would touch a live monkey while he was in Africa, so less than 2 hours after mentioning it, my friend Alhaji shows up with a little baby monkey on a baby monkey leash. His name was Dixon and I'm still not real sure where he ran off and found a monkey. That's how stuff works here. Simply stunning.
-On the way home from the dance the first night, we crossed paths with a cobra. Someone warned us they had seen a giant snake and after we located it in the dark, we realized that someone had already killed it, but we watched it finish dying just to make sure. Welcome to Africa!
- We spent the whole week going and teaching at school. Destin and Stevo did most of the teaching and got to experience exactly what the education system is like here. It is very much different than America. Stevo had had some experience with this, but i'm glad Destin got to see exactly how challenging it can be.
-Every day they guys made the 2 min. walk down to the river to go for a dip. One of the many perks of having the BEST village ever.
-We all got to learn how to kill/slaughter a goat, africa style. And a chicken, but i think we knew that for the most part. We ate the goat meat for the whole week!

So, after the boys visiting, we headed to Freetown for a few days. We enjoyed a day on the beach and walking around the city for a bit before we headed to the Gambia. My other (African) cell got stolen in Freetown. UGH. So we headed out to the Gambia and stayed in the capital for a day until Destin flew out to head back to America. From my understanding, this was quite an eventful, typically Africa, journey. he he he. I'll leave that story to him. So Stevo and I headed back to his village in the Gambia called Jigimar. Right outside of Farafenni. It was a great trip and really nice to see another West African country, but it was also very different than Sierra Leone. It's nuts that they can be so close but so different. There aren't any trees there, there's never any clouds in the sky, and there's tons of sand. It's a lot like the desert. The culture and the way of life seems to be very similar to that of Sierra Leone, but the religion is that 85-90% of the country is Muslim. This meant that clothes were much different and a lot of different times of the day you witnessed prayer time. That happens here, but since the population of Muslims is less, you don't see it quite as often.

So, after my trip to the Gambia, I headed back to the village for a little over a week before I came back into Freetown. Most of our volunteers met up here for the open house peace corps celebration and festivities for SL 50th anniversary of independence celebration. On my way in, it was the worst day of travel ever! That happens sometimes, but it was made better when I got to the last vehicle swap and some guy in an ice cream truck picked me up and gave me a free ride to the last place I had to go. As a result of this, I got to eat free ice cream that is the best that I've had here and I also got to help sell it as we cruised the city streets. It was a hoot.

After the arrival, me and my peeps pretty much spent the next coupla days shopping and beach bumming. While beach bumming on the second day, we saw a Lebanese guy on a jet ski so one of my buds flagged him down and we took turns ridin some waves. It was gnarley!

So, now, I'm ready to head back to the village and enjoy the rest of Mango/Pineapple season and wait for the first rains to come. I just hope tomorrows travels prove to be easier than last Wednesday's and I hope I get to talk to my mommy first! I love you all and miss you all and I'll update you again as soon as I can. I'll also try to see if Destin can get some pictures up. Over and out.